Warnings of Auckland transport network crisis

A study into the future transport
needs of Auckland reveals a looming crisis as the city’s
population growth exceeds the ability of the transport
network to cope.

The City Centre Future Access Study
(CCFAS) was commissioned by Auckland Transport and warns of
significant delays and congestion on all routes into the
city centre within the next 10 years*.

The CCFAS follows
a request 18 months ago from then Minister of Transport,
Steven Joyce, for Auckland Mayor Len Brown to develop a
robust and achievable transport programme for access into
the city centre.

The study was completed in consultation
with central government officials and depicts an access
crisis for the city centre if public transport is not
reshaped and strengthened.

The CCFAS identifies the City
Rail Link (CRL) as essential. It says that bus-only
investment will provide for short-term benefits but in some
cases will be ‘worse than doing nothing’ for private
vehicle travel times.

Len Brown says two thirds of New
Zealand’s population growth over the next 30 years will be
in Auckland and meeting this growth will require significant
investment to complete the strategic public transport
networks.

“We must complete the CRL without delay. It is
an essential investment for the whole of Auckland because it
doubles the capacity of the rail network and improves access
to our town centres adjacent to rail,” says the
Mayor.

“The city centre will increasingly be the
focus for high productivity jobs and the CRL enables this
growth.”

The CCFAS also shows that in less than a
decade bus volumes will need to increase by 70 per cent on
key routes. This means insufficient road capacity and bus
improvements that fail to meet demand by 2021.

Central to
the Minister’s request was the need for Auckland Council
to investigate alternatives to the CRL. Of the 46 potential
alternatives, two options, a surface bus priority option or
an underground bus tunnel, were taken forward for further
investigation.

The CCFAS found that a bus-only solution
would require the acquisition of more than 230 properties to
improve bus corridors on the approaches to the city and
would require the equivalent of two city blocks to store
buses during the day..

Neither option performed as well as
the CRL across the access indicators.

The study also found
that private vehicle speeds in the city centre at peak times
will more than halve, reducing to seven kilometres per hour
(km/h) by 2021 and down to five km/h by 2041.

For rail,
the outlook is particularly bleak. Post electrification
there are no options to increase peak train services to
Britomart.

Auckland Transport Chair Lester Levy says the
best solution is one that integrates the use of the entire
transport network.

”The study underlines the importance
of the CRL to improving the entire transport network. It
provides a logical and factual basis on which the work
already underway can continue.”

* The predictions take
into account the assumed completion of all planned road
improvements and are based on medium population growth
projections.

Ends

Notes for
editors:

NumbersAuckland
population, using a medium growth forecast, is predicted to
be 2.2m in 2041, an increase of about 730,000 people

•
An extra 400,000 dwellings will be required, with 70 per
cent in the metropolitan urban limit

• Employment and
residential numbers in the city centre are expected to
almost double by 2041. Employment to more than 200,000
people and residential to 140,000. In addition, city centre
student numbers are expected to increase by 30 per cent to
35,400

• In 2021, the city centre will account for 17
per cent of Auckland’s gross domestic product (GDP) and
this is estimated to grow to 25 per cent in 2041

• City
centre public transport use is predicted to increase by 47
per cent in 2021

• A bus-only solution would require 20
per cent more buses in the city centre in peak hour

•
Meeting the forecast demand in 2021 will require 199 buses
on Symonds Street per peak hour and 250 in 2041, compared to
the current 125

• Parking, loading and taxi zones on
dedicated priority bus corridors would need to be
removed

• Car travel times to the city centre from the
southern growth area are likely to increase by 25 minutes
between 2021-2041.

The full report can be viewed
as a PDF on the Auckland Council
website.

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